


hid his face amidst a crowd of stars

by zvyozdochka



Series: wheeling in great broken rings [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Backstory, Infidelity, Introspection, M/M, Post-Break Up, but not really, implied happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 05:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvyozdochka/pseuds/zvyozdochka
Summary: He was drunk and the memory came in flashes, but there were lines Viktor had never, would never cross. This was one of them.It was the kind of secret that could have consequences. Shake apart walls and let the dust fly off where it had settled.But who would believe him? He had his reputation for a reason, after all.





	hid his face amidst a crowd of stars

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to all of you who read 'the gap between agape and eros', i am in a perpetual state of awe by the response it has gotten. my thanks especially to those who encouraged me to write a sequel!! this wouldn't exist without you :)
> 
> i think it goes without saying that this won't make sense without reading 'the gap between agape and eros' but just in case: go read that first.
> 
> title comes from WB Yeats, 'When You Are Old'. (the series name is actually a quote from his poem 'Wild Swans At Coole')
> 
> as i am pretentious as i am ridiculous, there's a deep and meaningful significance to the poems in this work and the first (yes, even the series name) so go ahead and google if you would like a more nuanced read. 
> 
> if not, his love interest maud gonne has a funny hat which i'm sure everyone can appreciate.
> 
> without further ado, enjoy!

> Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled  
>  And paced upon the mountains overhead  
>  And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.  
> 
> 
> WB Yeats, 'When You Are Old'

The thing about being a minor celebrity is that Viktor is used to people using him, pushing him away at the first sign of better prospects because _of course, love, but it was only a bit of fun._

He’s fallen in love 3, 4, 5— too many times, too many. He remembers the third the clearest, the blurry childhood infatuations that came before it smudged and almost forgotten for the passing time. But the third, the third he could never forget.

He was a rinkmate, a hockey player, not the best at what he did, but prideful all the same. He would come to Viktor’s practices and watch, and wait, and afterwards, drag him aside to mess him up a bit. The only bruises he ever got were those on his neck and bitten into his chest.

It was an adrenaline rush, something like nerves but infinitely brighter, twisting into his stomach and pulling red to his cheeks in the cold air of the rink. Performing for someone, he figured then, was something to be treasured, something to lock in a little box and pull out for special occasions. He would dance and dance and the ice would become slick and easy to cut as air beneath him, and always he found himself in a dark corner afterwards, hands tugged through his hair and smoothed down his torso.

He fell in love with it. The emotion, like the roar of the crowd, contained in one muscular form, drew him in. The heated kisses and the moments in the locker room, tucked away and always out of sight, lit him up, someone who appreciated him and cared and wanted _him_ and _watched him skate—_

He shouldn’t have. 

Hockey players, of course, are a fine catch for anyone. Clearly the other boy’s girlfriend thought so too.

He was more careful, and less, after that. He knew the thrill and loved it, the thrill of eyes watching and his own body curling and curving and stunning on the ice. He fell and fell and fell and none broke his heart, exactly. Not quite so dire, and yet.

He was so empty.

Another man, another bed, another hotel, and Viktor was lacking the beautiful thrill and lacking inspiration and he hated it but he couldn’t stop because he had been dancing for someone else his entire life, his lovers, the crowd, his fans, what else could he do?

It was watching a plate fall in slow motion. A few precious seconds where the plate was whole, seemed whole, but inevitably—

_crash_

—it would shatter.

 

Viktor did not like to lose. Did not like to fall, to disappoint, did not like to be anything but perfection’s physical form on ice.

So he did not lose, and this was simple, until is was not.

He was the one he was beating, his challengers were his own inspiration and the jumps he could pull off. He was his own arch nemesis, and any sort of competitive spirit fell by the wayside as he broke another world record and skated another personal best because _who_ could possibly be a rival. He was too old for new skaters to prove a challenge, green as they were, too above the seasoned skaters for them to pose a risk. 

It was lonely, and if there was one thing Viktor hated, it was being alone. So he began to fall, and fail, and hope desperately that someone would notice that his performance component was dropping even as his technical increased.

No one did, of course, and Viktor screamed his plea into the void with the crisp cut of blades and the truest program he had skated in a very long time.

A mournful tone, the sweep of strings, he tried to paint a picture of a lover left lonely and only managed to bare his empty soul. Was he dancing for a soulmate that did not exist? A lost lover? The crowd, his coach, his country, his inspiration?

He couldn’t tell anymore, even as the last notes of the aria echoed around the rink.

He did not lose, of course he did not. Such was the life of the Living Legend, gold upon gold upon glittering gold.

But he did not win, either.

 

 

He was asked many questions, after.

_How long—_

_Why—_

_Were you unhappy—_

_How could you—_

_Are you happy with yourself now?_

He answered none of them, and let his phone ring out and out and out before he threw it under a couch and cried himself to sleep.

He wasn’t, of course. Happy with himself, that is.

 

 

Viktor was a man of both many and few secrets. Most of anything could be found in tabloids and twitter threads, from his favourite colour to his professional opinion about the ramifications the Soviet Union had on artistic expression in figure skating history.

There were some that couldn’t, some secrets that slipped through the cracks of that perfect smile and the gleaming blue of his eyes. His parents, for one, their names, their faces; Viktor was not an entity that emerged fully formed to dance on gleaming blades and frozen water. His long time obsession with a trashy American show about some pretty boy with daddy issues and his brother. The kitten he rescued from a kill shelter and gave to Yuri when the boy complained about never having had a pet.

Some big, some small.

And himself in the tangled weave of it all, waiting for something that he was not quite sure he was ready for.

The truth is not something easily obscured from the flash of cameras, from his height to his weight to the freckle on his left shoulder that he himself did not find until the article they ran. But here is one truth they did not know. One he hid, for so long, because out of all the questions they asked and all the accusations they threw, not once did Yuuri call. 

Not once.

He was at that club, on the night he lost everything, with Chris, learning to pole dance for Yuuri. He was there for nothing more, the blurry photo a remnant of Chris ruffling his hair, Chris laughing as they stumbled into the alley, left the club, Chris waving him off as he boarded the plane, hungover and worse for wear but no less Yuuri’s than he was before.

He was drunk and the memory came in flashes, but there were lines Viktor had never, would never cross. This was one of them.

It was the kind of secret that could have consequences. Shake apart walls and let the dust fly off where it had settled. 

But who would believe him? He had his reputation for a reason, after all. And then somewhere, in the back of his mind, tired and hungover as he was, he thought, _is this my penance?_

And so he would stare at the ceiling and say, _when Yuuri calls. Then I will tell him._

Viktor was, at heart, a coward.

 

 

He thinks, sometimes, if this wasn’t something he wanted to happen. Some remnant from a life spent lived for others, second guessing every move and thrown the instant it was as simple as Yuuri loved him and he loved Yuuri.

He thinks, in the depths of night, as he looks out to a cloudless sky and the full, aching moon, that maybe he wanted more than anything for Yuuri to see him pushing Yuuri away and say _stay close to me, don’t leave me, I’m afraid of losing you._

He thinks maybe that he wanted Yuuri to catch him as he fell, warm arms and pretty smile and kind heart and eyes solely for Viktor. The comfort of home on a cold winter’s day.

 

 

 

“Yuuri!” Christophe grins, swooping in to kiss the other’s cheeks. “My, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, I don’t think we’ve seen each other since last year’s GPF! Isn’t it terrible, what the press are saying about Viktor?”

Yuuri blinked.

Chris’ smile fell, just a little, his dewy green eyes darkening in confusion.

“Yuuri? You’re taking good care of him, aren’t you? He’s more fragile than he seems, our gold— though I imagine you would know all about that, yes?”

“What— what do you mean, Chris?”

 

 

_Shatter._

_Porcelain on tile._

_A plate in pieces._

They say it takes three seconds for the sound of lightning to reach a listener five kilometers away. The sun, seven minutes for the light to reach the earth. It took until the Grand Prix Final for the truth to reach Katsuki Yuuri’s ears, but, well— who could say how long the shards had been lying in the dust?

 

 

 

Viktor breathed in, let the ice bear his weight.

A piano, the notes haunting and distant. A song about things that are lost, things left in the dark for too long. The crowd of the GPF was roaring his name, though in anger or elation he could not say. He had not spoken to Yuuri in months- or, more accurately, Yuuri had not spoken to him. His finger gleamed golden in the white lights of the rink, a ring still circling it.

He moved.

Elegant, limbs long and lithe, he leapt and spun and twirled. Felt the ice under his blades, felt the story rise up within him.

A man, scared and alone, finds love. A man, afraid and too long unloved, pushes it away. A man, frightened, waits to see if his love will push back, and—

The crowd hisses, Viktor touching down on a simple triple salchow for the first time since his early career.

The music swells, falls into a single ringing note. 

The man loses everything.

A flying sit spin, into a step sequence and then a combination jump.

The man, searching for what he had lost, his love beyond his reach.

He wound himself into his final pose, curled into a ball, one arm outstretched for something unseen by the gate, wrist upturned and vulnerable.

A name, his own, called from the sidelines.

 

He turned.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to check out my other works or my tumblr: blazing-ball-of-sunshine
> 
> or just yell at me in the comments, i thrive off validation and attention


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